Sidharva
Sakorinarthra Asurman Sidharva '''(1296-1359), sometimes Anglicized as '''Sidarva '''or '''Sedarva, was a Classical Toranese playwright and poet, often lauded as the greatest writer in Toranese history. After fighting in the Great Reformist War, Sidharva came to be a respected poet in Rajam III's Chancille and eventually the emperor's chief playwright. He wrote seven surviving plays, his best known being The Emperor Pto, The Song of the Sea and Jarmathra. As his life progressed, he gradually went insane and his plays became increasingly obtuse, bizarre, and hard to understand, until his last play, Persaria, which is not understood and is often considered to be simply lunacy. By 1351, Sidharva had declined to the point where Rajam had to have him locked in a mental institution, where he scribbled meaningless words all over the walls, giving modern psychologists evidence that he may have suffered from severe schizophrenia. Sidharva's plays met widespead praise and controversy at the time of their original release, garnering fame for their extraordinary writing and subtle themes but also attracting noroiety for drawing upon pre-Cåoist religious themes, criticizing society, and questioning nearly all of the established beliefs of the era. The most common theme between Sidharva's plays, particularly his later ones, is what it means to be sane and insane, and how what is normal can so easily be seen as madness; his plays also explore the themes of war, love, betrayal, family, vengeance, and what it means to be a ruler. Today, Sidharva is widely praised for his influence on the Toranese language and for shaping the surreal aspects of Toranese culture and theater, as well as for his careful writing that included complex detonification and often invented words or used them in entirely novel ways. Sidharva is often considered the national playwright of Toran and of Toranese culture around the world, and is often considered one of the greatest influences on world literature. Biography Sidharva was born into a middle class Reformist Toranese family in Nihabat in 1296, to Muerso Asurman Thakinatra and his mother, Helayne Siriosotu Asurman, the fourth of five sons. He showed promise from an early age, and was very interested in his studies all until war broke out across Toran in 1316 between Reformists and Classical Cåoists after the murder of Emperor Ptomselat III. Sidharva, twenty years old and of a sturdy build, was quickly drafted by a Reformist army, and fought in the disastrous Battle of Sorúekin, during which nearly his entire army was killed. He fled south and eventually joined the army of Hiyai Rajama Purpatan, who would eventually be victorous in the war and declare himself Emperor. During this time, Sidharva faced the brutality of war and was reputedly extremely scarred, coming out of the war twenty pounts lighter than when he had joined and with little interest in anything at all. Both of his parents were killed in the war and he settled down in Chancille with almost nothing to his name except a vague connection to the emperor. Sidharva took up drinking between 1320 and 1323, and spent a significant amount of time living on the street. Eventually, in 1323, he left Chancille and traveled across the empire, north to Avedon, east to Ponté and west into the lands controlled by Ptolomaise. He traveled by himself and during this time took back up writing poetry, which he had enjoyed as an adolescent; although it is unknown how many poems Sidharva wrote during his trips across Toran and Ptolomaise, they are thought to have numbered thousands, with him having often written multiple poems in the same day. He never came to publish a single poem that he wrote between 1323 and 1327, even though they are thought to have dramatically shaped his writing style. He also read profusely on his travels, easily picking up Avedonian and Kharpin and incorporating elements of traditional Avedonian and Kharpin literature into his own style. By 1327, when he returned to Chancille, Sidharva was a very different man from when he had left. Sidharva wrote his first plays in his early thirties, and managed to show several of them at small theaters in Chancille. He would generally act as the main character in them. Sidharva's early plays were mostly based around the traditional romantic and moralistic format of early Toranese theater, although the surviving bits and pieces of these plays, none of which survive in their entirety, show that his grasp of human nature already went far beyond that of other playwrights of the time, and that his following of the technical blueprint to Toranese theater at the time was only in theory. However, he achieved little renown during this time, and remained very poor. It is was not until 1335 when one of Sidharva's plays, titled The Tiger and the Three Wise Men, a satire, achieved some attention in Chancille, partly because it was visited by Rajam's wife, who loved Sidharva's writing style. None of the play has survived to this day, however. After Rajam's defeat of the Kharpin Empire at Kordar and subsequent sack of Ponté, Rajam commissioned Sidharva to write a play lauding his greatness as emperor. Six months later, surprisingly quickly, Sidharva finished The Mountains of Kordar, the first of his great plays. It met wild success throughout Toran, and Rajam and his wife loved it. Although on the surface it praised Rajam profusely, modern analyses of the play have shown the subtle areas where Sidharva criticizes war and imperialism. After the success of The Mountains of Kordar, Rajam told Sidharva that he wanted the playwright to write a "spectacle of the likes the world has never seen" promoting the Toranese nationality and heritage. Sidharva began writing the Emperor Pto ''in 1337 and finished in 1340, when it was debuted at the Royal Theater, the world's largest theater at the time. The play cost nearly twice as much to put on as any other play ever sponsored by a Toranese emperor, and supposedly even Rajam expressed doubts; however, the extremely surreal and supernatural nature of the play and its use of pre-Cåoist Toranese mythology made it immensely popular and highly praised among the nobles of Toran. News of the great new spectacle spread throughout Toran like wildfire, and the elite from every corner of the Toranese Emprie traveled to Ptolomaise to see ''The Emperor Pto. Many believed it to be heresy, promoting non-Cåoist mythology; however, Rajam himself loved the play and called it the "perfect representation of the humility of man and the unity of the Toranese people." Sidharva embarked on a number of other projects after the Emperor Pto, supposedly spending obsessive hours in his royally sanctioned quarters writing and rewriting and throwing away. It was during this time that he became interested in detonification, or the displacement of tones in words to subtly alter their meaning and connotation, and also when he showed his first signs of mental illness. Over the next ten years, Sidharva debuted The Song of the Sea; Jarmathra; The People in Exile, the second part of what Sidharva would come to call the Cycle of Redemption, with the first being Pto; Irmasara; ''and the cryptic ''Persaria, released in 1350 and only showed several times due to become unintelligible. During this time, his creative peak, Sidharva slowly descended into lunacy. He repetedly mentioned hearing voices in his head and was often caught acting bizarrely in public, sometimes at late hours of the night. Plays Sidharva wrote a number of plays before he achieved much attention, and only small bits and pieces of any of these remain. It was not until 1335, when he was thirty-nine, that his writing finally became noticed. 'The Tiger and the Three Wise Men' The Tiger and the Three Wise Men (Toranese: Tagara i Ter Sero Kalarwasi) was written by Sidharva in 1334, and put on first by the Maswar Theater in early 1335, when it was watched by Rajam III's wife consort Deyarmattha. It follows the life of three well respected men living in Ptolomaise who are pursued by an aggressive woman named Tagara, literally meaning "tiger." Tagara plays with each of the men, leading them on, and in the end they are all shown to be fools. It was unusual at the time for portraying the woman as more aggressive and cunning than the men. It received some controversy for its use of sexual themes and its critique of the "high society" of Ptolomaise; despite this, Deyarmattha loved it, particularly for its portrayal of women and its reversal of traditional themes. The Tiger and the Three Wise Men ''continued to be popular throughout much of the Toranese Empire, although declined in popularity later before having a resurgence of interest in recent years. 'The Mountains of Kordar' Sidharva wrote ''The Mountains of Kordar ''for Rajam III, in order to curry favor. It depicts Rajam at an ideoligized version of the Battle of Kordar, when Rajam defeated the Kharpin forces and took Ponté. The central themes of the play are the military dominance of Toran and the strong hand of Rajam. It has often been seen simply as a propaganda play; however, a more careful, modern analysis has revealed several layers of subtle social criticism within the play. It is very occasionally put on for its language and its grand choreography, but today it is the least popular of Sidharva's plays. 'Emperor Pto' ''Emperor Pto was the first of Sidharva's plays after Rajam began sponsoring him and after he was given free reign. Sometimes considered the most ambitious play ever staged, Emperor Pto depicts the story of the legendary Emperor Pto, who, according to pre-Cåoist legend, was given the world as a gift by the gods and founded the city of Ptolomaise. The play shows the effects of fear and jealousy on Pto, originally a perfectly morally upright and respected man, who, by the end of the play, has killed all of his family and advisors out of fear of betrayal. He goes to the Oracle of Foran and learns that his first born shall be his downfall, and ends up murdering his own son, and, later, two of his closest advsors. His wife kills herself and his second son flees Ptolomaise. His story ends when, after everyone he used to know is gone, he takes a bath to clean himself and finds the war gradually turning red, and then finds himself confronted by the ghost of his son, who is then followed by the ghosts of all of the others who have died because of him. Pto feels his skin falling off and turns into a shriveling, bloody man rolling on the floor before he desperately grabs his own knife and stabs himself. Sidharva choreographed the play to have an immense range of spectacular effects that add a supernatural and surreal element to the play, expanding it beyond realism and allowing the themes of the play to be evident in its choreography. It is the most performed of Sidharva's plays, and is a staple at the Royal Theater in Chancille, being performed every Saturday night. At the time of its release, it caused a splash larger than any play in Toranese history, attracting wealthy people from all across the Toranese world and cementing Chancille as the cultural center of the Far West. It was Sidharva's least subtle play, and, unlike later plays, does not include a significant exploration of the nature of society, or a critique of society. It is largely based on many writings that Sidharva read on the legend of Pto, although he also included many of his own personal flourishes. Sidharva himself considered the play the first part of his magnum opus, the Redemption Cycle, which was to include two more plays, depicting the redemption of man. 'The Song of the Sea' Full article: ''The Song of the Sea After the massive success of ''Emperor Pto, Sidharva was given complete free reign. The Song of the Sea' (Toranese: Melara màn Mocerea), first released four years later, follows the story of Neste, the king of the fictional island nation of Ebe. The Song of the Sea ''was, at the time, a poignant social criticism and a commentary on the natural of what society dictates to be normal and abnormal. In the play, Neste finds himself called to the sea by a mysterious song, and ends up spending several months at sea having a surreal experience that turns his notion of reality on its head. By the time that the Ladies of the Sea (the Arscalia) allow him to return to Eben, everything in the real world seems so bizarre to him that he returns to the sea to submerge himself under the waves and join with the ocean's song. Sidharva achieves this affect through detonification, or the subtle alteration of tones in words to make them have a different meaning and connotation, even if they remain the same word; this effect parallels Neste's own feelings about returning to Eben after seeing the surreal splendor of the ocean. ''The Song of the Sea ''is considered a masterpiece of Toranese theater and one of Sidharva's greatest plays, along with ''Emperor Pto ''and ''Jarmathra. It has been extensively studied ever since its debut, and more than a hundred scholarly papers have been written on it. The play deconstructs Classical Toranese society and points out the daily hypocrisies and oddities of "civilized society." Because of this, it was very controversial at the time of its release, although it was also immensely popular. The Song of the Sea ''is considered to be the first of Sidharva's works that displayed his increasing interest in sanity and his gradual descent into madness. 'Jarmathra''' ''Full article: ''Jarmathra Sidharva's fourth play under the sponsorship of Rajam III, ''Jarmathra focuses on the meaninglessness of war and the line between sanity and madness. It follows Jarmathra, a soldier in the Minaran Wars, as he seeks to avenge the mysterious death of his father. Jarmathra's actions to find his father's murderer get increasing drastic, until he eventually turns to murder, and, with each man he kills, Jarmathra loses a piece of his own humanity and gradually becomes only a ghost. By the time that he finally tracks down his father's killer, he is so angry that he lashes out, and finds out that the man who he has killed was in fact his father, and he looks up to see that the man that he was following is not in the room, and was only a separate version of himself. Jarmathra ''was Sidharva's last fully coherent play before his descent into madness. It was an extremely difficult play for him to write, as he drew largely from his own experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia. It also serves as a powerful critique of war, portraying it as brutal, meaningless and mad; although the war portrayed is supposedly the Minaran Wars, it much more closely resembles the Great Reformist War in its scope and nature. ''Jarmathra ''has therefore often been interpreted as an anti-war play, and even an anti-authority play, criticizing Rajam III's belligerent foreign policy. Although it confused many audiences when first released due to its themes of horror, fantasy, and surrealism, today it is considered one of the greatest works of Toranese literature. Of Sidharva's great works, ''Jarmathra ''is often considered to be the most daring and innovative, and it has had a vast influence on Toranese literature since. It has been adapted for film three times, most notably by Kiyesomli Amarthë in 1963. There have also been a number of novels, films, and other plays based off of ''Jarmathra, often setting it in modern times; notable examples include Havasta's novel Jarmathra and the King of Bones ''from 1891, setting the story during the time of the Toranese Civil War, and the Noriki novel ''The Blood of My Fathers ''by Giyes Orshanatav, setting the story during the Great War of Norik. 'The Men of Weeds Sidharva spent nearly eight years working on the second part of his Redemption Cycle, and was allegedly still unhappy with it when it was first shown in 1348. Titled The Men of Weeds, ''it traces the lives of two families living in pre-Cåoist Toran, who live a brutish life after the fall of man from grace due to Pto's hubris. Extremely ambitious, ''The Men of Weeds ''is seen as having never reached its full potential due to Sidharva's descent into insanity, and, although widely studied, is rarely performed. The two families both attempt to achieve redemption from Pto's fall but all of their plans turn to dust when the local chieftain, the king Isbara, orders them to be killed. 'Persaria' Sidharva's released last completed play, ''Persaria, first produced in 1351, after he had descended completely into madness, and it has never been deciphered. It appears to follow the life of a noble woman named Persaria, who identifies as multiple different people who can be identified by have different detonified versions of her own name. Sidharva uses detonification extensively to switch between alternate versions of reality, and never makes it clear what is actually happening in the play. There are a number of named characters, but there is no scholarly consensus on whether they actually exist; many believe that the characters are all intended to be figments of Persaria's imaginations, while others believe that they are real people with whom Persaria is supposed to be interacting. The play has no real observable plot, although some believe that the abrupt end to the play is supposed to show Persaria's sudden death, while others believe that Sidharva merely neglected to finish the play. It was released to very negative reception at the time and today is almost never performed, although it is still the subject of significant scholarly analysis. 'The Redemption Cycle III' Many pages have been recovered from Sidharva's drafts of the third piece of the Redemption Cycle, although it was never finished and he never publicly released it. The play depicted Vadha and Vadha's redemption of Pto's sin; however, it also incorporates interweaving threads of pre-Cåoist imagery and mythology that brings into question the exact nature of Sidharva's religious belief. As Sidharva continued working on the play, his plans for it grew increasingly bizarre and supernatural, until, by the time he was locked away in 1452, his writings were nearly incomprehensible. Sidharva wrote more material for the Redemption Cycle III than for any other of his plays, and yet never nearly completed it. Category:Toran Category:Playwrights Category:Toranese theater Category:Writers Category:Classical Toran Category:Rajamai Era